Upgrade Bids

[Eightfoldjeff]

VV states bid upgrade notifications go out (via email) approximately 48 hours before the cruise. Can anyone who's been through the process tell me their own experience? 

[offtosee]

We actually won an upgrade the night before embarkation! We had booked a sea terrace and placed a bid on all but one level of rockstar suite, on the off chance. It was about 8pm, and we were already in our hotel room in Miami. I got a series of emails: first one with the subject line "Congrats, you're being upgraded!" and then several more titled "We were unable to accept your Level Upgrade offer" I was immediately able to sign into the app and see our new room number and start pulling up deck plans and such. It was an incredibly exciting night for us! 🙂 

[Eightfoldjeff]

Wow, that is a cool story! Made it more exciting to get the notification at the last minute😂 May I ask, were you pretty aggresive with your bids? I don't have experience in this area and was going back and forth with my approach.

[cantgetin]

Things to consider when bidding include what the cost  difference vs. what you booked.of the upgrade would have been when you initially booked and what it is now.  THe bid page will show you the minimum bid.  You decide how much over that you are willing to go, and when select a "peculiar" number--one that ends in 4 or 7, for example.  For instance, if your max bit would be $100 over the minimum, live a little and go for $107.  Many people bid in numbers that end in 5 or 0. By choosing something just a bit higher, you improve your chances.

 

Whether to bid $100 over the minimum bid or $1000 over is really a personal matter. My logic is to purchase a cabin where I will be happy, and then bid relatively little over the minimum stated.  It makes no sense to go beyond what the upgrade would have cost when I booked--in that case, why didn't I book that to begin with? But I've gotten hits several time on various lines with the "peculiar number" system.

Edited April 6 by cantgetin

[Eightfoldjeff]

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks again!

[garycarla]

And, with just a handful of suites to start with, not many are going to win, at any price.

[CrazyTrain2]

I never really understood the Lord of the Flies bidding game. Some suites just ain't that sweet and you end up paying more for a lesser experience. The bidding process is useful to VV since they get to see relative demand and what people might be willing to pay.

[Jamesv281117]

Found out upgraded from limited view sea terrace to cheeky corner suite day before sailing. First clue was card being charged obviously then app changed to rockstar then got an email a bit later. 

[CineGraphic]

17 hours ago, cantgetin said:

You decide how much over that you are willing to go, and when select a "peculiar" number--one that ends in 4 or 7, for example.  For instance, if your max bit would be $100 over the minimum, live a little and go for $107.  Many people bid in numbers that end in 5 or 0. By choosing something just a bit higher, you improve your chances.

 

Currently, the bid system uses a slide bar, everything ends in 0 or 5, there is no option to make it anything else.

[cantgetin]

6 hours ago, CineGraphic said:

 

Currently, the bid system uses a slide bar, everything ends in 0 or 5, there is no option to make it anything else.

Well, that's a bummer....they're killing my system.  Oh well, back to "book a cabin where you'll be happy and anything else is extra."

[FFMilesJunkie]

A bit of caution if you bid on XL. Oftentimes the only XL cabins available at the last minute are the ones on deck 8 above the red room so that’s where your “upgrade” will be. These have noise factors of 4 or 5 out of 5.  If you want to know the noise factor of your cabin you can ask your TA. Every cabin on the ship has a number between 0 and 5. 

Edited April 8 by FFMilesJunkie

[cantgetin]

While it is true that upgrade cabins, including XLs can be in the less desirable locations, there are also situations where someone upgraded from an XL to a suite, meaning that their XL is not available to someone else.  You can get a wonderful cabin with an upgrade bid....or one that you wouldn't choose on your own.  Again, if you want to choose your cabin, don't use the upgrade process at any category.

[Gilligan69]

Here's my experience from last year, where we sailed the Resilient Lady on its 2nd cruise ever (so ship was maybe half capacity).  We had paid for a inside cabin with the strategy of upgrading through bid process (or upon check in) to an XL Sea Terrace. Here's the good news -we got the upgrade via the bid.  Here's the bad news --the minimum bid required, equaled the same amount of extra $ we would have paid in order to secure that cabin class from the start.  And had we bid anything higher, it actually would have been more costly then getting that cabin class at the beginning. So we didn't see the bid process as a good deal at all. Any upgrades did not come at a discount. At least on our cruise.

[cantgetin]

You were smart to check upgrade costs vs. booking originally.  However, many cruise prices have increased dramatically...those of us with early bookings got good prices, while those who booked later not so much.